Defining Postmodern Theatre
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Theater
Dec 12,2011
meLê yamomo asked:
I’d like to begin by differentiating postmodern theatre from its preceding periodizing categorization, the ‘classical’ and the ‘modern’ drama. Classical drama is characterized by the value placed in the plot and its adherence to Aristotle’s laws of dramatic unities. In the nineteenth century we also observed how Hegelian philosophy filtered into modern drama with the movement of ‘man’/character at the forefront of dramaturgy in the character dramas of Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov. We also see how Aristotle’s mimesis is taken to the heights in the period of naturalism as influenced by the Darwinian science in the stagings of modern theatre. Raymond Williams observes the perfection of tragedy in modern drama where the alienated predicament of the human being in a highly industrialized world is highlighted. He sees Beckett’s tragicomedies representing the reduction and degradation of the human beings in a new absurdist dramatic structure.
To Elinor Fuchs, it is in the postmodern theatre that we witness the “death of the character” and the eradication of the plot. In this statement we are reminded of Barthes’ announcement of the “death of the author”, Foucault stating the “death of man” and Lyotard hailing the dissolution of metanarratives. As rigid categorization and structures of modernism collapse, eclecticism now characterizes postmodernism. But unlike Jameson’s notion of pastiche and extreme consumerism of multi-national capitalism, critical postmodern theatre derives its theory from the post-structuralists’ insight on semiotics. De Saussure laid bare the very construction of the human language exposing its structure of signs and codes. Taking off from this, Derrida’s analysis of the subjectivity of man’s meaning-making has furthered the invalidation of metanarratives. Now as the validity of the sign-signified and code-meaning constructs of languages are put into question, postmodernists are forced to investigate the language construction itself. Ultimately, we come to realize that meaning and signification is subjective and should be contextualized. With this, categorizing boundaries set by modernism collapse as well.
How do all these reflect in postmodern theatre?
Raymond Williams notion of the theatre convention explains this. Conventions in theatre according to Raymond Williams are methods such as figurative speech, stage blocking, songs or dance through which specific dramatic objectives are achieved. He pointed out how conventions in the theatre whether, performative techniques or literary devices, are characterized by its acceptability by the audience and its relations to the specific given standards. With this, he stressed the fact how dramatic conventions are maintained as “terms upon which author, performers and audience agree to meet, so that the performance may be carried on.” Nicole Boireau expounded on the concept of dramatic conventions through the Hamletesque metaphor of the ‘Mousetrap’. From this, he claims that the truth can be accessed through the world of illusion; that it is only through theatricality that truth can be revealed. Theatre expresses reality through the use of artificial conventions. He explained that only through the reflective nature of drama and the dramatic conventions that truths presented in drama are validated . It is then through the same dramatic and theatrical conventions set as the medium in expressing truths, that the expressed truths can be validated. It is through the limitations and self-confined means of definition can the expressed truths substantiate.
Williams and Boireau’s explanation is a profound manifestation of structuralist and post-structuralist concept of laying bare language and systems of signs and codes. Although rooted in the Classical and Modern Theatre tradition, this is a postmodern realization of what Linda Hutcheon calls the self-reflexive nature of postmodern theatre.
With the dissolution of a ‘universal’ language, postmodern theatre is but provoked to look into historical and cultural contexts for a language to articulate itself. The same characteristic is seen in other art forms. Postmodern choreographers made dances about dance, inquiring on the very core of movement vocabularies that gave birth to choreographical works on walking, skipping, etc. This is also true in the experimentations on the various dance styles seen in Twyla Tharp’s combinations of jazz, ballet and ballroom. In the Philippines, this is seen in Agnes Locsin’s and Alice Reyes’ fusion of jazz and ballet and Philippine folk and ethnic movements. Postmodern architects see the history of architectural design as a diverse source of signs to be combined and recombined, thus Greek columns, Art Deco ornamentation and Modern Industrial materials are eclectically put together in a single building.
Postmodern theatre sees the various cultural and historical traditions as a vast source of signs. Kaye describes how postmodernism sees history as a store of signs available for postmodern theatre practice. In a recent production of Hamlet in Singapore, Hamlet was shown as a Noh actor Ophelia as a Balinese dancer. Or in the recent staging of Dulaang Habi’s musical Sa Kaharian ng Araw, audiences are taken into an seemingly incoherent worlds of a cabaret/rock concert, a Peking opera stage, and an extremely expressionistic theatrical world. The music is a mixture of Broadway influenced pop and rock songs, and fusion of classical and traditional Filipino ethnic and folk music. In the postmodern theatre, representations in acting style, costumes, production design, music and other elements are taken from different contexts.
With the collapse of the modernist boundaries, postmodern theatre takes on pluralism and multiplicity in style, approach and over-all process. This has been reflected in various approaches to production. Another important postmodern theatre practice is the use of inter-text, or what Jameson calls a culture of quotations, where various texts could be used to comment on each other. Such is in a production of Romeo and Juliet, where the play ends with the closing monologue by Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Nick Pichay’s musical version of the Oyayi ng Ulan, the character Dugong complained about the accumulating garbage in the ocean. He remarked that the worst kind of garbage is the postmodern poetry of new poets- which of course includes Pichay himself.
With the similar collapse of the modernist notion of Aristotle’s linearity and the Hegelian logic of cause and effect, postmodern theatre is characterized by multi-dimensionality and simultaneity. A simplified example of this is Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu and Her Friends where the audiences are divided into groups to see different scenes of the play happening in various places. Or in the seashore scene of the 2002 staging of Sa Kaharian ng Araw, past and present converge with the appearance of Paolo’s deceased parents in the same stage where Paolo lovingly recalls them. On the same space in the stage an actor fishes on one side, while another plays with a rain stick, while other actors waiting for their cue sit attentively on chairs onstage. Here, multi-dimensionality and simultaneity is not just seen in how the plot is (dis)arranged. Even the actors playing the characters go through different dimensions of performance and representation in the same time and space. The actor although dressed up for the character he is to portray sits on a chair on the side waiting for his cue, substantiate both as the actor and as the character. The person exist as both the actor and character simultaneously but in different dimensions – where at one point, while he waits for his cue he essentially is not part of the play but simultaneously, physically and intentionally, he is physically there.
As Fuchs sees the diminution of character and plot in postmodern theatre, she sees the other theatrical elements taking on equal importance with these elements. She sees that “each signifying element – lights, visual design, music, etc., as well as plot and character elements – stand to some degree as independent actor.” She pointed out that the Aristotelian elements survived but their classical and modern structural hierarchies ceased to operate. This attitude in theatre production takes its roots from the Brechtian Epic Theatre. Brecht earlier on said: “Today we see the theatre being given absolute priority over actual plays. The theatre apparatus’s priority is a priority of means of production… The Theatre can stage anything; it theatres it all” (Raymond Williams, p.280).
And as postmodern theatre see the “death of the author” (the playwright), the director now takes the central role as the theorist responsible for creating the language of a production.
Postmodern theatre is also differentiated from the modern theatre with its mode-of-production. The Industrial Revolution and the idea of mass-production and the division-of-labor affected music and theatre production. The symphony orchestra and the opera are megalomaniac inventions of modernism. The eighteenth century symphony captured the massive sound of modernism. Here music is produced by a big group of musicians who are divided into sections. The opera is an even bigger modernist creation. Such massive theatre production requires a complex web of ‘workers’/artists who work as a big company that include an orchestra, singers, dancers, clothes-makers, carpenters, etc. Even the art-products are now produced for mass consumption. While music used to be performed in courts and chambers, the symphony and the opera are staged in large opera houses that sit thousands.
This new paradigm in theatre production calls for a different attitude from the audience as well. In postmodern theatre, Aristotle’s notion of catharsis comes to extreme obscurity in postmodern theatre. Aesthetic experience becomes completely dependent upon the meaning making process. The aesthetic experience that transpires in the postmodern process is closer to Kant’s sublime. Unlike Aristotle’s cathartic drama that succumbs its audience to empathizing attitude towards the mimetic illusion of classical and modern drama, Kant states that distance is necessary in achieving aesthetic pleasure. Brecht in turn, proposes ‘complex seeing’ in theatre: “Complex seeing must be practiced… . Thinking above the flow of the play is more important than thinking from within the flow of the play” (Ibid., p281).
In as much as postmodern theatre is required to go through a dialogic process of taking theory into practice and back to theory for it to be able to express itself, postmodern audience then is also called to go through this process of meaning-making. Here, postmodern theatre forces its audience to always take on a critical stance in watching. Language-creation and meaning-making in postmodern theatre is never a simple one-on-one correspondence mode of cognition. With a wary stance towards subjectivity of language, postmodern productions then are manifested with recurring disruptions in its audience’s cognitive process. John Orr sees this as intentional dis-recognition/mis-recognition and he notes that these are often used as dramatic-shock effects. The audience is provoked to figure out what is ‘menacing’ and ’strange” in familiar objects onstage and they are prodded to “translate back the strangeness, as a performed disguise of the metonymic, into something they truly recognize, knowing there is no complete translation” (John Orr, p.32) .
In the elusive nature of postmodernism as a theory, DiGaetani sees the importance of having a terminology that can serve as a handle. He noted that “it is wonderful to have a term like postmodernism to describe the art” (John DiGaetani, p. xv). To Fuchs, the theatre has indeed what we can call now postmodern and she asserts that the sooner we grasp its methods we are “immediately at a better vantage point from which to view what used to be called ‘avant-garde’ theatre” (Elinor Fuchs, p.171).
Works Cited:
Boireau, Nicole. Drama in Drama. Macmillan Press: London, c.1997. John DiGaetani. The Search for Postmodernism: Interviews with Contemporary Playwrights. Greenwood Press: New York, 1991. Elinor Fuchs . Death of the Character. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c.1996 John Orr. Tragicomedy and Contemporary Culture. Hong Kong: Macmillan Academic and Professional, Ltd., 1991 Raymond Williams. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969 c. 1968.
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I’d like to begin by differentiating postmodern theatre from its preceding periodizing categorization, the ‘classical’ and the ‘modern’ drama. Classical drama is characterized by the value placed in the plot and its adherence to Aristotle’s laws of dramatic unities. In the nineteenth century we also observed how Hegelian philosophy filtered into modern drama with the movement of ‘man’/character at the forefront of dramaturgy in the character dramas of Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov. We also see how Aristotle’s mimesis is taken to the heights in the period of naturalism as influenced by the Darwinian science in the stagings of modern theatre. Raymond Williams observes the perfection of tragedy in modern drama where the alienated predicament of the human being in a highly industrialized world is highlighted. He sees Beckett’s tragicomedies representing the reduction and degradation of the human beings in a new absurdist dramatic structure.
To Elinor Fuchs, it is in the postmodern theatre that we witness the “death of the character” and the eradication of the plot. In this statement we are reminded of Barthes’ announcement of the “death of the author”, Foucault stating the “death of man” and Lyotard hailing the dissolution of metanarratives. As rigid categorization and structures of modernism collapse, eclecticism now characterizes postmodernism. But unlike Jameson’s notion of pastiche and extreme consumerism of multi-national capitalism, critical postmodern theatre derives its theory from the post-structuralists’ insight on semiotics. De Saussure laid bare the very construction of the human language exposing its structure of signs and codes. Taking off from this, Derrida’s analysis of the subjectivity of man’s meaning-making has furthered the invalidation of metanarratives. Now as the validity of the sign-signified and code-meaning constructs of languages are put into question, postmodernists are forced to investigate the language construction itself. Ultimately, we come to realize that meaning and signification is subjective and should be contextualized. With this, categorizing boundaries set by modernism collapse as well.
How do all these reflect in postmodern theatre?
Raymond Williams notion of the theatre convention explains this. Conventions in theatre according to Raymond Williams are methods such as figurative speech, stage blocking, songs or dance through which specific dramatic objectives are achieved. He pointed out how conventions in the theatre whether, performative techniques or literary devices, are characterized by its acceptability by the audience and its relations to the specific given standards. With this, he stressed the fact how dramatic conventions are maintained as “terms upon which author, performers and audience agree to meet, so that the performance may be carried on.” Nicole Boireau expounded on the concept of dramatic conventions through the Hamletesque metaphor of the ‘Mousetrap’. From this, he claims that the truth can be accessed through the world of illusion; that it is only through theatricality that truth can be revealed. Theatre expresses reality through the use of artificial conventions. He explained that only through the reflective nature of drama and the dramatic conventions that truths presented in drama are validated . It is then through the same dramatic and theatrical conventions set as the medium in expressing truths, that the expressed truths can be validated. It is through the limitations and self-confined means of definition can the expressed truths substantiate.
Williams and Boireau’s explanation is a profound manifestation of structuralist and post-structuralist concept of laying bare language and systems of signs and codes. Although rooted in the Classical and Modern Theatre tradition, this is a postmodern realization of what Linda Hutcheon calls the self-reflexive nature of postmodern theatre.
With the dissolution of a ‘universal’ language, postmodern theatre is but provoked to look into historical and cultural contexts for a language to articulate itself. The same characteristic is seen in other art forms. Postmodern choreographers made dances about dance, inquiring on the very core of movement vocabularies that gave birth to choreographical works on walking, skipping, etc. This is also true in the experimentations on the various dance styles seen in Twyla Tharp’s combinations of jazz, ballet and ballroom. In the Philippines, this is seen in Agnes Locsin’s and Alice Reyes’ fusion of jazz and ballet and Philippine folk and ethnic movements. Postmodern architects see the history of architectural design as a diverse source of signs to be combined and recombined, thus Greek columns, Art Deco ornamentation and Modern Industrial materials are eclectically put together in a single building.
Postmodern theatre sees the various cultural and historical traditions as a vast source of signs. Kaye describes how postmodernism sees history as a store of signs available for postmodern theatre practice. In a recent production of Hamlet in Singapore, Hamlet was shown as a Noh actor Ophelia as a Balinese dancer. Or in the recent staging of Dulaang Habi’s musical Sa Kaharian ng Araw, audiences are taken into an seemingly incoherent worlds of a cabaret/rock concert, a Peking opera stage, and an extremely expressionistic theatrical world. The music is a mixture of Broadway influenced pop and rock songs, and fusion of classical and traditional Filipino ethnic and folk music. In the postmodern theatre, representations in acting style, costumes, production design, music and other elements are taken from different contexts.
With the collapse of the modernist boundaries, postmodern theatre takes on pluralism and multiplicity in style, approach and over-all process. This has been reflected in various approaches to production. Another important postmodern theatre practice is the use of inter-text, or what Jameson calls a culture of quotations, where various texts could be used to comment on each other. Such is in a production of Romeo and Juliet, where the play ends with the closing monologue by Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Nick Pichay’s musical version of the Oyayi ng Ulan, the character Dugong complained about the accumulating garbage in the ocean. He remarked that the worst kind of garbage is the postmodern poetry of new poets- which of course includes Pichay himself.
With the similar collapse of the modernist notion of Aristotle’s linearity and the Hegelian logic of cause and effect, postmodern theatre is characterized by multi-dimensionality and simultaneity. A simplified example of this is Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu and Her Friends where the audiences are divided into groups to see different scenes of the play happening in various places. Or in the seashore scene of the 2002 staging of Sa Kaharian ng Araw, past and present converge with the appearance of Paolo’s deceased parents in the same stage where Paolo lovingly recalls them. On the same space in the stage an actor fishes on one side, while another plays with a rain stick, while other actors waiting for their cue sit attentively on chairs onstage. Here, multi-dimensionality and simultaneity is not just seen in how the plot is (dis)arranged. Even the actors playing the characters go through different dimensions of performance and representation in the same time and space. The actor although dressed up for the character he is to portray sits on a chair on the side waiting for his cue, substantiate both as the actor and as the character. The person exist as both the actor and character simultaneously but in different dimensions – where at one point, while he waits for his cue he essentially is not part of the play but simultaneously, physically and intentionally, he is physically there.
As Fuchs sees the diminution of character and plot in postmodern theatre, she sees the other theatrical elements taking on equal importance with these elements. She sees that “each signifying element – lights, visual design, music, etc., as well as plot and character elements – stand to some degree as independent actor.” She pointed out that the Aristotelian elements survived but their classical and modern structural hierarchies ceased to operate. This attitude in theatre production takes its roots from the Brechtian Epic Theatre. Brecht earlier on said: “Today we see the theatre being given absolute priority over actual plays. The theatre apparatus’s priority is a priority of means of production… The Theatre can stage anything; it theatres it all” (Raymond Williams, p.280).
And as postmodern theatre see the “death of the author” (the playwright), the director now takes the central role as the theorist responsible for creating the language of a production.
Postmodern theatre is also differentiated from the modern theatre with its mode-of-production. The Industrial Revolution and the idea of mass-production and the division-of-labor affected music and theatre production. The symphony orchestra and the opera are megalomaniac inventions of modernism. The eighteenth century symphony captured the massive sound of modernism. Here music is produced by a big group of musicians who are divided into sections. The opera is an even bigger modernist creation. Such massive theatre production requires a complex web of ‘workers’/artists who work as a big company that include an orchestra, singers, dancers, clothes-makers, carpenters, etc. Even the art-products are now produced for mass consumption. While music used to be performed in courts and chambers, the symphony and the opera are staged in large opera houses that sit thousands.
This new paradigm in theatre production calls for a different attitude from the audience as well. In postmodern theatre, Aristotle’s notion of catharsis comes to extreme obscurity in postmodern theatre. Aesthetic experience becomes completely dependent upon the meaning making process. The aesthetic experience that transpires in the postmodern process is closer to Kant’s sublime. Unlike Aristotle’s cathartic drama that succumbs its audience to empathizing attitude towards the mimetic illusion of classical and modern drama, Kant states that distance is necessary in achieving aesthetic pleasure. Brecht in turn, proposes ‘complex seeing’ in theatre: “Complex seeing must be practiced… . Thinking above the flow of the play is more important than thinking from within the flow of the play” (Ibid., p281).
In as much as postmodern theatre is required to go through a dialogic process of taking theory into practice and back to theory for it to be able to express itself, postmodern audience then is also called to go through this process of meaning-making. Here, postmodern theatre forces its audience to always take on a critical stance in watching. Language-creation and meaning-making in postmodern theatre is never a simple one-on-one correspondence mode of cognition. With a wary stance towards subjectivity of language, postmodern productions then are manifested with recurring disruptions in its audience’s cognitive process. John Orr sees this as intentional dis-recognition/mis-recognition and he notes that these are often used as dramatic-shock effects. The audience is provoked to figure out what is ‘menacing’ and ’strange” in familiar objects onstage and they are prodded to “translate back the strangeness, as a performed disguise of the metonymic, into something they truly recognize, knowing there is no complete translation” (John Orr, p.32) .
In the elusive nature of postmodernism as a theory, DiGaetani sees the importance of having a terminology that can serve as a handle. He noted that “it is wonderful to have a term like postmodernism to describe the art” (John DiGaetani, p. xv). To Fuchs, the theatre has indeed what we can call now postmodern and she asserts that the sooner we grasp its methods we are “immediately at a better vantage point from which to view what used to be called ‘avant-garde’ theatre” (Elinor Fuchs, p.171).
Works Cited:
Boireau, Nicole. Drama in Drama. Macmillan Press: London, c.1997. John DiGaetani. The Search for Postmodernism: Interviews with Contemporary Playwrights. Greenwood Press: New York, 1991. Elinor Fuchs . Death of the Character. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c.1996 John Orr. Tragicomedy and Contemporary Culture. Hong Kong: Macmillan Academic and Professional, Ltd., 1991 Raymond Williams. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969 c. 1968.
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Ppc Appraisal Program
- Author: admin
- Filed under: ECommerce
Dec 11,2011
John Ugoshowa asked:
This program is very simple to download, entirely free and really works!
Requiring no sponsoring, no costs at all to join, once it has been set up, the only thing you do is leave your computer on and the system will just automatically run and you can trace your income by the second.
This program operates comparable to “click on a search engine and get paid” programs, with the exception of the following:
1.It is run automatically similar to auto surf, so there is no need for you to click on any link.
2.It does not provide you with only one search engine, but there are at least twenty one now running.
If you continually run your computer for twenty four hours a day, you may earn up to fifteen dollars a day. At the end of the month, when they will be adding up to two hundred more search engines, you may earn up to sixty dollars a day, not doing anything, just be online.
In addition, you get another five percent of your referrals running time; these referrals could go as far as four levels.
Every search engine builds up an independent total of your time surfing. You must reach sixty dollars before payment be done by each of the search engine.
Normally, when you are running your computer online for twenty four hours each day, without any referral, for you to reach sixty dollars, it would more or less take you up to two months, with the now running twenty four search engines. Now consider this, sixty multiplied by twenty four will equal to one thousand four hundred forty. This is how much you will make in two months, of doing nothing.
Signing up:
Take note of this URL, as you will use this as your sponsor:
http://www.ppcappraisal.com/register.php?fT=1&RefId=14387
1.Go to http://www.ppcappraisal.com/register.php?fT=1&RefId=14387 and fill out the form.
For the URL, put ppcappraisal.com
For tax ID, put N/A
Fill the rest of the form with your personal information
Take note that ppc appraisal does not accept any email address with full stops or non alphabetic characters in it. If you are in need of a new email address just for this intention, you can register at www.hotmail.com ; they offer a free account.
3.Log in (this will take you on to a menu)
4.Hit select all at the pages’ bottom.
5.Go back again to the bottom of the page and hit “select all” then “request”
6.There will be more than two pages that will appear. Do the same for all of the pages.
7.Go to your PPC account and click on “statistics” and observe the entire search engines appear and your total earnings.
8.Download “test 33″ (go to http://66.84.56.206/ppc/test33.exe) and make sure you save it to the desktop.
9.Log in to PPC appraisal, select campaigns on the menu.
10.Write down a copy of your portal URL
11.In the test33 browser, go to tools, analyst, act, setup; you will see two squares that are empty; on the lower left side, click append and wait for the pop up window to appear open.
12.Inside that window, type in set 1 and hit OK.
13.After which, it will fade away.
14.Go back to tools, analyst, act, hit set 1 and the url will load.
15.Go to tools, analyst and hit loop and then click on navigation.
16.At the bottom, click on the word “six” and this will open up six different search engines.
17.Now the test 33 will start on clicking all search engines.
18.Do not adjust any settings. You can minimize the window and still work on your normal computer wok. It will just continue on clicking the search engines and will never interfere with what you do. These are search engines that use up or get a run through this particular program. They are doing this and making payments to improve or increase their numbers so they can have a better chance to compete with google or yahoo.
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This program is very simple to download, entirely free and really works!
Requiring no sponsoring, no costs at all to join, once it has been set up, the only thing you do is leave your computer on and the system will just automatically run and you can trace your income by the second.
This program operates comparable to “click on a search engine and get paid” programs, with the exception of the following:
1.It is run automatically similar to auto surf, so there is no need for you to click on any link.
2.It does not provide you with only one search engine, but there are at least twenty one now running.
If you continually run your computer for twenty four hours a day, you may earn up to fifteen dollars a day. At the end of the month, when they will be adding up to two hundred more search engines, you may earn up to sixty dollars a day, not doing anything, just be online.
In addition, you get another five percent of your referrals running time; these referrals could go as far as four levels.
Every search engine builds up an independent total of your time surfing. You must reach sixty dollars before payment be done by each of the search engine.
Normally, when you are running your computer online for twenty four hours each day, without any referral, for you to reach sixty dollars, it would more or less take you up to two months, with the now running twenty four search engines. Now consider this, sixty multiplied by twenty four will equal to one thousand four hundred forty. This is how much you will make in two months, of doing nothing.
Signing up:
Take note of this URL, as you will use this as your sponsor:
http://www.ppcappraisal.com/register.php?fT=1&RefId=14387
1.Go to http://www.ppcappraisal.com/register.php?fT=1&RefId=14387 and fill out the form.
For the URL, put ppcappraisal.com
For tax ID, put N/A
Fill the rest of the form with your personal information
Take note that ppc appraisal does not accept any email address with full stops or non alphabetic characters in it. If you are in need of a new email address just for this intention, you can register at www.hotmail.com ; they offer a free account.
3.Log in (this will take you on to a menu)
4.Hit select all at the pages’ bottom.
5.Go back again to the bottom of the page and hit “select all” then “request”
6.There will be more than two pages that will appear. Do the same for all of the pages.
7.Go to your PPC account and click on “statistics” and observe the entire search engines appear and your total earnings.
8.Download “test 33″ (go to http://66.84.56.206/ppc/test33.exe) and make sure you save it to the desktop.
9.Log in to PPC appraisal, select campaigns on the menu.
10.Write down a copy of your portal URL
11.In the test33 browser, go to tools, analyst, act, setup; you will see two squares that are empty; on the lower left side, click append and wait for the pop up window to appear open.
12.Inside that window, type in set 1 and hit OK.
13.After which, it will fade away.
14.Go back to tools, analyst, act, hit set 1 and the url will load.
15.Go to tools, analyst and hit loop and then click on navigation.
16.At the bottom, click on the word “six” and this will open up six different search engines.
17.Now the test 33 will start on clicking all search engines.
18.Do not adjust any settings. You can minimize the window and still work on your normal computer wok. It will just continue on clicking the search engines and will never interfere with what you do. These are search engines that use up or get a run through this particular program. They are doing this and making payments to improve or increase their numbers so they can have a better chance to compete with google or yahoo.
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How to Build a Small Greenhouse Just for yourself
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Food & Beverage
Dec 11,2011
Jimmy Spier asked:
Building your own small greenhouse can be a very enjoyable and educational experience as well as economical especially when you are clever with tolls.
Select a well-drained and level lot or ground for your greenhouse. If you will be using it mainly during the summer for propagation of plants, then you can situate it in a partially shaded area to reduce heat buildup.
The “north side” of your yard, with a big deciduous tree is an ideal location. If there is no partly or moderately shaded area available, you can make use of a white plastic or shade cloth for cover so as to regulate the extent of sunlight that reaches your greenhouse interior.
If you will be using the greenhouse for beginning transplants or that you will be growing plants till they mature, your greenhouse should be put up in an area will it will have the highest sun exposure. Likewise, it must be situated where there is good air drainage; do not construct your greenhouse in low areas which are surrounded by buildings or woods. Consider also convenient water access and electricity.
No matter what kind and greenhouse dimensions you choose, take into consideration the time that you will have for managing the system.
Never be overly ambitious, as there are several new owners of a greenhouse that often realize they can not spend sufficient time as they had believed they would. However, it is not often true that a greenhouse requires continuous attention.
The greenhouse environment may be sustained with very minimal maintenance using automated controls that operates the ventilation, heating, humidity, artificial lighting and watering, should there be no one to look after it. A hobbyist must take into consideration installing automatic control system and begin with plants that are easy to care.
There are many prefabricated greenhouses available in the market that you can purchase, or your greenhouse maybe built out of very simple frames, though make sure that only certified plumbers and electricians must install your automatic systems.
Kits are widely available in various prices, materials and styles, but if you are an eager “do-it-yourselfer”, your small greenhouse may be affordably constructed for a comparatively small amount of cash. Lean-tos type of greenhouse can be built leaning against a garage or a house taking advantage of the existing wall, though one has to consider sitting space.
The major advantage when you choose to purchase a greenhouse kit, many details like how to deal with humidity, ventilation and leakage have been already dealt with and considered in the pattern. Someone who is constructing the greenhouse himself must consider all these so as to avoid problems that can result to untimely failure and plant loss. Here are tips to help you build and design your own small greenhouse.
1. Begin with an average design using materials that are easily available. Know your preferences. Attractive greenhouses may be constructed using recycled materials such as remilled wood, repurposed doors and window sashes.
2. Adapt to your area’s climate so as to make particular solutions that depends on your climate and location.
3. Plan a design that can use standard material sizes, most of which are available in “multiples of 4″.
4. Take into account your habits in gardening when planning the design. Growing vegetables is very different from growing vegetables.
5. You can set up timers and thermostats to regulate the precise heat or light needed.
6. Design and make a “back up” arrangement just in case of power failure or harsh weather conditions.
7. When you will be using wood, you can build the greenhouse from cedar, redwood or cypress, although regular wood treated and painted will also do. Make sure that you use wood that is pressure treated for framing, as it is an effective and economical.
8. Usually a greenhouse uses “glass-paned”, but polycarbonate plastic, fiberglass, plastic film and acrylic can be also used. Each of these materials has its disadvantages and advantages, so you need to research well to decide on one that is best for you.
9. Although permanent foundations are recommended to support the structure, flooring is really not necessary. Flooring poured with gravel up to a few inches deep will permit ample drainage. A flat stone or concrete walkway between seating will provides steady footing.
10. You greenhouse design should have enough room for tall plants and plants should only use half up to “two-thirds” of your greenhouse area and the rest is reserved for benches and your work area.
Have fun!
bridal shower favors
Building your own small greenhouse can be a very enjoyable and educational experience as well as economical especially when you are clever with tolls.
Select a well-drained and level lot or ground for your greenhouse. If you will be using it mainly during the summer for propagation of plants, then you can situate it in a partially shaded area to reduce heat buildup.
The “north side” of your yard, with a big deciduous tree is an ideal location. If there is no partly or moderately shaded area available, you can make use of a white plastic or shade cloth for cover so as to regulate the extent of sunlight that reaches your greenhouse interior.
If you will be using the greenhouse for beginning transplants or that you will be growing plants till they mature, your greenhouse should be put up in an area will it will have the highest sun exposure. Likewise, it must be situated where there is good air drainage; do not construct your greenhouse in low areas which are surrounded by buildings or woods. Consider also convenient water access and electricity.
No matter what kind and greenhouse dimensions you choose, take into consideration the time that you will have for managing the system.
Never be overly ambitious, as there are several new owners of a greenhouse that often realize they can not spend sufficient time as they had believed they would. However, it is not often true that a greenhouse requires continuous attention.
The greenhouse environment may be sustained with very minimal maintenance using automated controls that operates the ventilation, heating, humidity, artificial lighting and watering, should there be no one to look after it. A hobbyist must take into consideration installing automatic control system and begin with plants that are easy to care.
There are many prefabricated greenhouses available in the market that you can purchase, or your greenhouse maybe built out of very simple frames, though make sure that only certified plumbers and electricians must install your automatic systems.
Kits are widely available in various prices, materials and styles, but if you are an eager “do-it-yourselfer”, your small greenhouse may be affordably constructed for a comparatively small amount of cash. Lean-tos type of greenhouse can be built leaning against a garage or a house taking advantage of the existing wall, though one has to consider sitting space.
The major advantage when you choose to purchase a greenhouse kit, many details like how to deal with humidity, ventilation and leakage have been already dealt with and considered in the pattern. Someone who is constructing the greenhouse himself must consider all these so as to avoid problems that can result to untimely failure and plant loss. Here are tips to help you build and design your own small greenhouse.
1. Begin with an average design using materials that are easily available. Know your preferences. Attractive greenhouses may be constructed using recycled materials such as remilled wood, repurposed doors and window sashes.
2. Adapt to your area’s climate so as to make particular solutions that depends on your climate and location.
3. Plan a design that can use standard material sizes, most of which are available in “multiples of 4″.
4. Take into account your habits in gardening when planning the design. Growing vegetables is very different from growing vegetables.
5. You can set up timers and thermostats to regulate the precise heat or light needed.
6. Design and make a “back up” arrangement just in case of power failure or harsh weather conditions.
7. When you will be using wood, you can build the greenhouse from cedar, redwood or cypress, although regular wood treated and painted will also do. Make sure that you use wood that is pressure treated for framing, as it is an effective and economical.
8. Usually a greenhouse uses “glass-paned”, but polycarbonate plastic, fiberglass, plastic film and acrylic can be also used. Each of these materials has its disadvantages and advantages, so you need to research well to decide on one that is best for you.
9. Although permanent foundations are recommended to support the structure, flooring is really not necessary. Flooring poured with gravel up to a few inches deep will permit ample drainage. A flat stone or concrete walkway between seating will provides steady footing.
10. You greenhouse design should have enough room for tall plants and plants should only use half up to “two-thirds” of your greenhouse area and the rest is reserved for benches and your work area.
Have fun!
bridal shower favors
RC Helicopter vs RC Planes
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Art & Entertainment
Nov 30,2011
Greg Haehl asked:
Since RC Helicopter flying takes every kids and kids at heart to the closest experience of flying a real helicopter it is undoubtedly thrilling and exciting experience. In terms if RC Helicopter sizes – here you can trim down your choices into gas electric mini micro and toy.But in the case you want to upgrade to ultralight you can easily get familiar with flying since you have already been with an engined-helicopter.
If you prefer building model helicopter for your personal gallery. Just follow the entire manual to the ‘t’ Do not get all excited when the heli is all put together you still have many hours of configuring / balancing / and adjusting everything. Homebuilt RC Helicopters are motorized (although wit less power) and can lift you off from the ground with the same experience you can get from a conventional full-size helicopter.
What kind of engines do RC Helicopters run on? Special remote control RC Helicopter engines. They come in 2-stroke and 4-stroke glow burning engines as well as 2 stroke gasoline models. If you descend to quickly you will enter your own down wash and the RC Helicopter will pull itself into the ground and need considerable collective to compensate. This is a bad condition. Model enthusiasts are notably quick to emulate full-size aviation achievements, but were not as successful with rotary wing aircraft, and it was not until 1968 that the first fully controllable R/C model helicopter appeared, built by Dr. Dieter Schluter of West Germany.
Full RC Helicopter guide at http://www.rchelicopterguide.info/heli/RC_Helicopter_Simulation.html. Spare parts; The basic formula is the cheaper the helicopter the cheaper the spares and the lighter the helicopter the less crash damage you will incur.
Besides. When you get good at flying your RC reverse the direction of the rudder. When you are good at this land while slowly pirouetting. Ok.
bridal shower favors
Since RC Helicopter flying takes every kids and kids at heart to the closest experience of flying a real helicopter it is undoubtedly thrilling and exciting experience. In terms if RC Helicopter sizes – here you can trim down your choices into gas electric mini micro and toy.But in the case you want to upgrade to ultralight you can easily get familiar with flying since you have already been with an engined-helicopter.
If you prefer building model helicopter for your personal gallery. Just follow the entire manual to the ‘t’ Do not get all excited when the heli is all put together you still have many hours of configuring / balancing / and adjusting everything. Homebuilt RC Helicopters are motorized (although wit less power) and can lift you off from the ground with the same experience you can get from a conventional full-size helicopter.
What kind of engines do RC Helicopters run on? Special remote control RC Helicopter engines. They come in 2-stroke and 4-stroke glow burning engines as well as 2 stroke gasoline models. If you descend to quickly you will enter your own down wash and the RC Helicopter will pull itself into the ground and need considerable collective to compensate. This is a bad condition. Model enthusiasts are notably quick to emulate full-size aviation achievements, but were not as successful with rotary wing aircraft, and it was not until 1968 that the first fully controllable R/C model helicopter appeared, built by Dr. Dieter Schluter of West Germany.
Full RC Helicopter guide at http://www.rchelicopterguide.info/heli/RC_Helicopter_Simulation.html. Spare parts; The basic formula is the cheaper the helicopter the cheaper the spares and the lighter the helicopter the less crash damage you will incur.
Besides. When you get good at flying your RC reverse the direction of the rudder. When you are good at this land while slowly pirouetting. Ok.
bridal shower favors
The 10 Greatest Ever Soccer Players in Mls History
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Soccer
Nov 26,2011
Greg Power asked:
Walter Zenga (New England Revolution)
The man they nicknamed Uomo Ragno (Spider-Man), was an ever present in the Inter Milan goal through the 1980’s, making no less than 328 appearances and appearing for his country 58 times.
Even more impressively, in Italia 90 set a record of keeping 5 consecutive clean sheets, totalling 518 minutes without conceding a goal, a record that still stands today.
He is now the manager of Serie A side Catania.
Richard Gough (Kansas City Wizards/San Jose Clash)
A no-nonsense centre half and one of Glasgow Rangers most successful ever players, winning 9 titles as part of the infamous ‘9 in a row’ team. Gough also amassed 61 appearances for the Scottish national side. His spell at Rangers was interrupted by a brief stint with Tottenham Hotspur, only to return to Rangers, becoming the first ever Scottish player to be sold for over £1,000,000.
He spent 2 years in the MLS with Kansas City Wizards and San Jose Cash, being named in the MLS XI of the Year whilst with the Wizards.
Lothar Matthaus (Metrostars)
Perhaps not just one of the greatest players in the history of the MLS, but in the history of soccer. Winning World Soccer Player of the Year, European Footballer of the year and Fifa World Player of the Year, Matthaus could play in defence or midfield, with a rocket right foot that earned him the status of Germany’s most capped player.
His managerial career, however, has not been as successful as his playing days, with short spells in Brazil, Austria and Serbia, and as of now in Israel as the manager of Maccabi Netanya.
Roberto Donadoni (Metrostars)
A vital key in AC Milan’s success through the 80s and 90s, when very few could argue against them being the best club side in the world (other than Barcelona’s dream team). Notorious for effortlessly running past players on the right flank, Donadoni collected 5 Serie A titles, 3 European Cups, 3 European Super Cups and 2 Intercontinental cups before moving on to the Metrostars, where he was named in the Best XI in the 1996 Season.
Now boss of the Italian national side, Italy are left with a mountain to climb in order to progress to the quarter finals after disastrous results against Holland and Romania.
Maurice ‘Mo’ Johnston (Kansas City Wizards)
Mo Johnston was a Scottish centre forward starting his career with Partick Thistle, and then spending a couple of seasons at Watford before his move to Celtic that would later earn him hatred across Glasgow.
Leaving Celtic for Nantes, vowing to never return to Scotland, Johnston reconsidered and done a U-Turn, claiming to sign for Celtic again at the end of the season. As the summer approached, Johnston changed his mind once more, this time signing for arch rivals Rangers. This infuriated Rangers fans as Johnston is an ex Celtic player and supporter, but worse still, he was Roman Catholic. Celtic fans turned on him, opting for the nickname of Judas, replacing his former moniker of MoJo, Rangers fans disliked him from the start.
Nevertheless, he scored 46 goals in 100 games, before moving back to England with Everton. This unsuccessful spell was followed by brief stints with Falkirk and Hearts, before joining the Kansas City Wizards, spending 5 seasons there.
Hw was more recently head coach of Metrostars, before being given his marching orders, taking over the helm of Toronto FC.
Mo Johnston’s last minute winner for Rangers vs Celtic, 1989
Denilson (FC Dallas)
At 21, Denilson became the most expensive player in the world when Spanish outfit Real Betis paid approximately $32,000,000 to Sao Paulo for his services. Renowned for his dazzling stepovers and skinning opponents on the left flank, he was regarded as one of the most promising players the game had seen.
Sadly, the promise he showed never really developed, mostly down to his selfish play by holding on the ball for too long, or as the UK would say, ‘ball-hogging’.
He only played 7 games for Dallas before returning to his native Brazil.
Carlos Valderrama (Tampa Bay Mutiny, Miami Fusion, Colorado Rapids)
Considered the greatest Colombian player of all time, his creativity and flare was only surpassed by his hair – a curly orange electrified afro. Elegant and intelligent with the ball at his feet, El Pibe (The Kid) never actually ran anywhere on the pitch, but with his level of skill, why bother? His status of legend was confirmed in 2006, when a 22 foot bronze statue of him was erected in his home town of Santa Marta. Brilliant.
Spending 6 years in the US, Valderrama still holds the record for the most assists.
Youri Djorkaeff (Metrostars)
Aptly nicknamed ‘Snake’, Djorkaeff was a cultivated attacking midfielder and formed a crucial partnership with Zinedine Zidane, resulting in France winning the 98 World Cup and Euro 2000.
Banging the goals in for Monaco, he spent one season at Paris St Germain before signing for Italian giants Inter Milan and Kaiserslautern, when somehow Bolton Wanderers persuaded him to sign.
He became Metrostars ‘MVP’ during his brief spell in the US, before an ankle injury forced him to retire.
Hristo Stoichkov (Chicago Fire, DC United)
Unpredictable and quite possibly insane, this tricky Bulgarian had everything: pace, mesmerizing dribbling and a devastating shot. Barcelona snapped him up from CSKA Sofia, where his temperament, passion and goal scoring record immortalized him as a Barcelona great.
He was also instrumental in Bulgaria’s unexpected run in the 94 World Cup, during which time they made it to the semi final, losing to Italy. Stoichkov also earned the Golden Boot, finishing joint-top with Russia’s Oleg Solenko.
David Beckham (LA Galaxy)
The man who needs no introduction, ‘Goldenballs’ is the most famous soccer player on the planet, who’s brand is more renowned than his free kicks and defence-splitting passes.
A style icon for every male in Britain whilst playing for Manchester Utd, Beckham’s commitments to his life away from soccer meant that his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson was likely to deteriorate, as it did to the extent that Ferguson managed to kick a soccer boot at Beckham’s eye, requiring stitches.
Fast forward a couple of years, Beckham joins ‘Los Galacticos’, winning the Supercup in his first season. He had to wait until 2007 for a major honour though, when Real won the Primera league.
Whilst at Galaxy, his career has seen a couple of milestones, a 100th cap for the England national team, and a stunning 70 yard goal against Kansas City Wizards, almost mirroring his efforts for Man Utd against Wimbledon in 1996.
party favors
Walter Zenga (New England Revolution)
The man they nicknamed Uomo Ragno (Spider-Man), was an ever present in the Inter Milan goal through the 1980’s, making no less than 328 appearances and appearing for his country 58 times.
Even more impressively, in Italia 90 set a record of keeping 5 consecutive clean sheets, totalling 518 minutes without conceding a goal, a record that still stands today.
He is now the manager of Serie A side Catania.
Richard Gough (Kansas City Wizards/San Jose Clash)
A no-nonsense centre half and one of Glasgow Rangers most successful ever players, winning 9 titles as part of the infamous ‘9 in a row’ team. Gough also amassed 61 appearances for the Scottish national side. His spell at Rangers was interrupted by a brief stint with Tottenham Hotspur, only to return to Rangers, becoming the first ever Scottish player to be sold for over £1,000,000.
He spent 2 years in the MLS with Kansas City Wizards and San Jose Cash, being named in the MLS XI of the Year whilst with the Wizards.
Lothar Matthaus (Metrostars)
Perhaps not just one of the greatest players in the history of the MLS, but in the history of soccer. Winning World Soccer Player of the Year, European Footballer of the year and Fifa World Player of the Year, Matthaus could play in defence or midfield, with a rocket right foot that earned him the status of Germany’s most capped player.
His managerial career, however, has not been as successful as his playing days, with short spells in Brazil, Austria and Serbia, and as of now in Israel as the manager of Maccabi Netanya.
Roberto Donadoni (Metrostars)
A vital key in AC Milan’s success through the 80s and 90s, when very few could argue against them being the best club side in the world (other than Barcelona’s dream team). Notorious for effortlessly running past players on the right flank, Donadoni collected 5 Serie A titles, 3 European Cups, 3 European Super Cups and 2 Intercontinental cups before moving on to the Metrostars, where he was named in the Best XI in the 1996 Season.
Now boss of the Italian national side, Italy are left with a mountain to climb in order to progress to the quarter finals after disastrous results against Holland and Romania.
Maurice ‘Mo’ Johnston (Kansas City Wizards)
Mo Johnston was a Scottish centre forward starting his career with Partick Thistle, and then spending a couple of seasons at Watford before his move to Celtic that would later earn him hatred across Glasgow.
Leaving Celtic for Nantes, vowing to never return to Scotland, Johnston reconsidered and done a U-Turn, claiming to sign for Celtic again at the end of the season. As the summer approached, Johnston changed his mind once more, this time signing for arch rivals Rangers. This infuriated Rangers fans as Johnston is an ex Celtic player and supporter, but worse still, he was Roman Catholic. Celtic fans turned on him, opting for the nickname of Judas, replacing his former moniker of MoJo, Rangers fans disliked him from the start.
Nevertheless, he scored 46 goals in 100 games, before moving back to England with Everton. This unsuccessful spell was followed by brief stints with Falkirk and Hearts, before joining the Kansas City Wizards, spending 5 seasons there.
Hw was more recently head coach of Metrostars, before being given his marching orders, taking over the helm of Toronto FC.
Mo Johnston’s last minute winner for Rangers vs Celtic, 1989
Denilson (FC Dallas)
At 21, Denilson became the most expensive player in the world when Spanish outfit Real Betis paid approximately $32,000,000 to Sao Paulo for his services. Renowned for his dazzling stepovers and skinning opponents on the left flank, he was regarded as one of the most promising players the game had seen.
Sadly, the promise he showed never really developed, mostly down to his selfish play by holding on the ball for too long, or as the UK would say, ‘ball-hogging’.
He only played 7 games for Dallas before returning to his native Brazil.
Carlos Valderrama (Tampa Bay Mutiny, Miami Fusion, Colorado Rapids)
Considered the greatest Colombian player of all time, his creativity and flare was only surpassed by his hair – a curly orange electrified afro. Elegant and intelligent with the ball at his feet, El Pibe (The Kid) never actually ran anywhere on the pitch, but with his level of skill, why bother? His status of legend was confirmed in 2006, when a 22 foot bronze statue of him was erected in his home town of Santa Marta. Brilliant.
Spending 6 years in the US, Valderrama still holds the record for the most assists.
Youri Djorkaeff (Metrostars)
Aptly nicknamed ‘Snake’, Djorkaeff was a cultivated attacking midfielder and formed a crucial partnership with Zinedine Zidane, resulting in France winning the 98 World Cup and Euro 2000.
Banging the goals in for Monaco, he spent one season at Paris St Germain before signing for Italian giants Inter Milan and Kaiserslautern, when somehow Bolton Wanderers persuaded him to sign.
He became Metrostars ‘MVP’ during his brief spell in the US, before an ankle injury forced him to retire.
Hristo Stoichkov (Chicago Fire, DC United)
Unpredictable and quite possibly insane, this tricky Bulgarian had everything: pace, mesmerizing dribbling and a devastating shot. Barcelona snapped him up from CSKA Sofia, where his temperament, passion and goal scoring record immortalized him as a Barcelona great.
He was also instrumental in Bulgaria’s unexpected run in the 94 World Cup, during which time they made it to the semi final, losing to Italy. Stoichkov also earned the Golden Boot, finishing joint-top with Russia’s Oleg Solenko.
David Beckham (LA Galaxy)
The man who needs no introduction, ‘Goldenballs’ is the most famous soccer player on the planet, who’s brand is more renowned than his free kicks and defence-splitting passes.
A style icon for every male in Britain whilst playing for Manchester Utd, Beckham’s commitments to his life away from soccer meant that his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson was likely to deteriorate, as it did to the extent that Ferguson managed to kick a soccer boot at Beckham’s eye, requiring stitches.
Fast forward a couple of years, Beckham joins ‘Los Galacticos’, winning the Supercup in his first season. He had to wait until 2007 for a major honour though, when Real won the Primera league.
Whilst at Galaxy, his career has seen a couple of milestones, a 100th cap for the England national team, and a stunning 70 yard goal against Kansas City Wizards, almost mirroring his efforts for Man Utd against Wimbledon in 1996.
party favors
Getting Insurance Quotes Safely On Internet Is Also Important
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Microwave Ovens
Nov 23,2011
ricky asked:
Internet has come with a great revolution in every field. It is a new means for buying and selling of every thing. There are different sites which are offering these facilities, using these sites you can buy anything just sitting at home. You just need to have an internet connection if you want to access these sites. You can also look for free insurance quotes for your home, vehicle, life on the web. If you want to search insurance quotes for your home it is very easy to get via internet. Almost every thing is available on internet you just need to search the required thing appropriately.
As every one can access internet then there are also some fake sites or illegal sites that are just made to steel people money by making them fool. It is not necessary that every site you are accessing is safe and trusty worthy there are many illegal and unsafe sites. If you know little bit of computer then it is very easy for you to find out the best home insurance quotes. You just need to write the type of insurance on the search engine and you get the plenty of sites displayed on the screen.
There are some points if kept in mind can help you in selecting the type of insurance. It is said that firs impression is the last impression. If the site looks good and impressive and looks very much professional then you can trust the site. Ignore the site on which full information is not given and which is not impressive. There are lots of sites where you can get the insurance quotes for your home. If you find any site which does not seem to be trusty then skip to another site. the name of any big brand ensures than the site is really genuine, if any site belongs to a good and reputed company then it is the legal site
A good website comprises of all the relevant information needed. Almost every company offers insurance in every field, there are links present for different insurance policies on the home page of any site. Depending on your choice you can click the link. You must consider the top most websites on the page displayed when searching through the search engine. The best sites are displayed on the starting pages. After searching the good sites read properly all its content and then decide.
bridal shower favors
Internet has come with a great revolution in every field. It is a new means for buying and selling of every thing. There are different sites which are offering these facilities, using these sites you can buy anything just sitting at home. You just need to have an internet connection if you want to access these sites. You can also look for free insurance quotes for your home, vehicle, life on the web. If you want to search insurance quotes for your home it is very easy to get via internet. Almost every thing is available on internet you just need to search the required thing appropriately.
As every one can access internet then there are also some fake sites or illegal sites that are just made to steel people money by making them fool. It is not necessary that every site you are accessing is safe and trusty worthy there are many illegal and unsafe sites. If you know little bit of computer then it is very easy for you to find out the best home insurance quotes. You just need to write the type of insurance on the search engine and you get the plenty of sites displayed on the screen.
There are some points if kept in mind can help you in selecting the type of insurance. It is said that firs impression is the last impression. If the site looks good and impressive and looks very much professional then you can trust the site. Ignore the site on which full information is not given and which is not impressive. There are lots of sites where you can get the insurance quotes for your home. If you find any site which does not seem to be trusty then skip to another site. the name of any big brand ensures than the site is really genuine, if any site belongs to a good and reputed company then it is the legal site
A good website comprises of all the relevant information needed. Almost every company offers insurance in every field, there are links present for different insurance policies on the home page of any site. Depending on your choice you can click the link. You must consider the top most websites on the page displayed when searching through the search engine. The best sites are displayed on the starting pages. After searching the good sites read properly all its content and then decide.
bridal shower favors
Old-fashion Recipes for Cinnamon Goodies From Vintage Recipe Collection
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Recipes
Nov 20,2011
Grandma Linda asked:
There’s nothing much better than the smell of cinnamon to make the mouth water. Whether waking to the smell of cinnamon or walking in the door to the fresh smell, cinnamon awakens the senses like few aromas can. Here are some old-fashion recipes using cinnamon for you to try. Let the smell of cinnamon envelope your kitchen today.
CINNAMON SUGAR FAN BISCUITS
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup milk
FILLING:
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar. Cut in shortening, using a pastry cutter or two knives, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk, just until moistened. Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead 8 to 10 times. Roll or pat into a 12-inch by 10-inch rectangle. For filling, spread the butter over the dough. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the butter. Cut into five 2-inch strips; stack strips on top of each other. Cut into six 2-inch pieces, place cut side down in six greased muffin cups. Bake at 425 degrees for 11 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to wire racks to cool. Serve while warm.
CINNAMON COOKIES
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
Cream sugars, butter in large bowl. Sift dry ingredients. Add egg, add dry ingredients. Form into roll. Refrigerate until chilled through. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice and bake.
CINNAMON LAYERED COFFEE CAKE
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup milk
3 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp flour
3/4 cup melted butter
To make topping, melt butter, add brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Mix well. Sprinkle between batter layers and some on the top.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs, beat well. Sift dry ingredients together, add alternately with milk and vanilla. Put half in greased and floured 13 x 9 x2-inch baking pan. Sprinkle half the topping mixture over batter. Add remaining batter and top with remaining topping mix. Bake cake at 350 degrees about 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Enjoy!
bridal shower favors
There’s nothing much better than the smell of cinnamon to make the mouth water. Whether waking to the smell of cinnamon or walking in the door to the fresh smell, cinnamon awakens the senses like few aromas can. Here are some old-fashion recipes using cinnamon for you to try. Let the smell of cinnamon envelope your kitchen today.
CINNAMON SUGAR FAN BISCUITS
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup milk
FILLING:
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar. Cut in shortening, using a pastry cutter or two knives, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk, just until moistened. Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead 8 to 10 times. Roll or pat into a 12-inch by 10-inch rectangle. For filling, spread the butter over the dough. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the butter. Cut into five 2-inch strips; stack strips on top of each other. Cut into six 2-inch pieces, place cut side down in six greased muffin cups. Bake at 425 degrees for 11 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to wire racks to cool. Serve while warm.
CINNAMON COOKIES
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
Cream sugars, butter in large bowl. Sift dry ingredients. Add egg, add dry ingredients. Form into roll. Refrigerate until chilled through. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice and bake.
CINNAMON LAYERED COFFEE CAKE
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup milk
3 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp flour
3/4 cup melted butter
To make topping, melt butter, add brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Mix well. Sprinkle between batter layers and some on the top.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs, beat well. Sift dry ingredients together, add alternately with milk and vanilla. Put half in greased and floured 13 x 9 x2-inch baking pan. Sprinkle half the topping mixture over batter. Add remaining batter and top with remaining topping mix. Bake cake at 350 degrees about 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Enjoy!
bridal shower favors
What is pop culture?
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Other - Society & Culture
Nov 13,2011
Examples please!!!!!
A Rich Wood Carving Tradition in Oaxaca, Mexico: Spotlight on Jacobo Ángeles
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Exotic Locations
Nov 11,2011
Alvin Starkman asked:
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Try searching the Americas to find creators of folk art with more form, symbolism and importance to the development and sustenance of their culture, than those of indigenous ancestry in Oaxaca (wa–HAW–ka), one of the southernmost Mexican states.
Many so-called experts in folk art have mistakenly written that the origins of Oaxaca’s wood carving tradition date back fifty or sixty years, to a small number of carvers residing in one of the central valleys of Oaxaca, a few miles from the state capital of the same name. The error has consistently been equating the recent commercialization of the art-form with its origins, and ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and subsequent development.
Jacobo Ángeles lives with his wife María and two children in San Martín Tilcajete, one of three main native Zapotec villages, where most residents earn a living from carving and painting colorful figures, often generically referred to as alebrijes. The others are Arrazola and La Unión Tejalapan.
At age 12 Jacobo began learning to carve from his father. Later on he was mentored by village elders. “Over the past few decades our craft has without a doubt changed dramatically,” Jacobo explains, “with the use of more synthetic paints, a tremendous increase in the range of figures being carved, and with domestic and international demand for our carvings growing exponentially and affecting how and what we produce. But remember, my ancestors were carving animals right here in this region before the Spanish arrived in the 1500’s. And we were using only natural paint colors which we derived from fruits and vegetables, plants and tree bark, clay, and even insects. In my family we still use what we find around us to make paint for our figures, and our wood of choice continues to be the branches of the copal tree.”
San Martín Tilcajete is located about a 40 minute drive from the city of Oaxaca, along a highway leading to the state’s Pacific resort towns, including one of the oldest ports, Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was a hub for the export of coffee and other cash crops during colonial times, but is now a popular beach destination for Mexican and international vacationers alike. Many travelers combine their sun and sand vacation with a visit to Oaxaca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, searching out unique pieces of folk art including dance masks, pottery and clay figures, rugs and tapestries, and antiques from the colonial period forward. And of course there are the pre-Hispanic ruins, galleries, impressive Dominican churches, museums, and renowned Oaxacan cuisine.
“My ancestors used a 20-day calendar,” Jacobo continues, “and each day was represented by a different creature. So every Zapotec person had an animal with whom he had a connection, and each animal had certain characteristics which carried over to the individual. For example, the jaguar represents power and ultimate strength, the frog is characterized by honesty and openness, the coyote watchful observation, the turtle always a troublemaker prone to breaking the rules, the eagle technical and strategic power, and so on. My people used to carve figures of just these 20 animals. They started out as small whittlings for good luck that people would keep in a revered niche in the home, or wear around the neck as amulets. They also carved larger figures for their children to use as toys.”
After much probing, an almost forgotten story emerges of the use of decoys of wood and other materials. Jacobo reveals: “My people used a variety of methods to attract different kinds of game, but for hunting birds of prey, rabbits, and deer, yes they at times used decoys. A painted wooden snake would be placed on the ground in an area where ants had trampled the grasses so the snake decoy would easily be seen by eagles. To hunt rabbit, my ancestors would attach a rabbit tail to one end of a straw hat, and at the other end another tail with a face painted on it. For deer, a crude wooden deer torso with real antlers would be placed in the tall brush. So carving was historically important to our people for not only totemic and related reasons, but it was directly related to our subsistence. All the written records from the period of the conquest, and not just local legend, confirm the importance of woodcarving.”
“But look at what we now carve. While in my family we still use natural paints, and still carve our totems, we’ve transformed a simple yet important and symbolic tradition into something very different. In our villages we now carve many more than those 20 animals because of collector demand. More importantly, we’re able to make our heritage better understood and appreciated by the world. In our own workshop, our painting depicts designs and representations of our culture … friezes from the ancient ruin at Mitla, symbols representing waves, mountains and fertility, the totems, and other metaphors for our culture, past and present.”
Indeed the world has taken notice. Jacobo’s work is prominently displayed in The Smithsonian Institute, Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art, and elsewhere throughout the continent and further abroad, in museums, art colleges and galleries. Jacobo regularly traverses the U.S. promoting Oaxacan folk art and his Zapotec heritage, teaching in a diversity of educational venues ranging from junior schools to university departments of fine art, and as honored speaker at art exhibition openings.
********************
A visit to the Ángeles workshop, accessed by a heavily pot-holed narrow dirt road towards one end of the village, affords an opportunity to learn about this extraordinary skill-set, from Jacobo, Maria — an excellent painter in her own right — and some two dozen other members of their family who produce some of the finest quality carvings found anywhere on the continent.
The men do most of the carving, while women do most of the painting, but the tasks are definitely not exclusively based on gender lines. Carving is done with non – mechanical hand-tools such as machetes, chisels and knives. The only time a more sophisticated tool is used is when a chain saw is employed to cut off a branch and level a base for a proposed figure.
Except when a special order is received, the woodworkers in the family are given artistic license to carve whatever figure they wish. A piece of tree trunk will “speak” to one of these specialists, and be the inspiration for creating a particular animal: the shape, thickness, and bends and twists in the piece come alive. After the bark is removed, a detailed outline is drawn, defining the image with greater clarity and detail. The sculpting in earnest then begins.
“From the female copal tree we are able to make figures out of one piece of wood, often very large and intricate. This wood is soft and easy to work with. The male tree is harder, and branches tend to be smaller and somewhat delicate, so we use it to make animals which we assemble in the process.”
The carving alone takes up to a month, at times longer. The figure is then left to dry for up to 10 months, depending on its overall size and thickness. Because of the properties of copal, and Oaxaca’s semi-tropical climate, the wood is susceptible to termite infestation. Accordingly, during the drying process the piece is soaked in a gasoline / insecticide mixture for several hours. As an added assurance, it’s then placed in an oven, just in case eggs have evaded extermination. “All of our pieces are guaranteed to never have a termite problem,” Jacobo assures.
Since the figures are fashioned while the wood is green and more easily workable, the wood separates while drying. “There are a couple of members of my family whose main job is to fill the cracks before the painting begins.” For this remedial work they use wood shims as well as a sawdust-glue mixture. But even these slivers of wood and the sawdust have been cured. “We’re proud of our work, and never want to have any problems with any of our buyers, whether someone is spending $20 or $2,000.”
In almost all cases in the Ángeles workshop, one person carves and another paints. Once a figure has left the hands of the carver, all proprietary rights are released, and another member of the family is entrusted with the painting. Nephew Magdaleno explains: “Occasionally one of my cousins will come up to me and say ‘what do you think about these colors or this kind of design concept for this coyote,’ and I’ll give my feedback, but it doesn’t happen very often, and I’m invariably pleased with the result. For me it’s the form that’s most important, and for whoever’s painting, it’s the imagery it captures.”
One cannot help but gasp at the sculpting genius which goes into each piece: A starving dog scratching fleas, a bear with its paw in a honey pot, a snake constricting a wincing jaguar, a winged horse on its hinds, a woman with long braided locks and the body of an armadillo, or a deer, life-size by Mexican standards. There’s something particularly arresting about each creation: the ever-so-flowing and realistic movement, a fanciful stance, or a familiar pose striking a chord with our popular characterization. However the painting is anything but familiar. No color goes untested and the intricacy of and variation in design is remarkable.
Theories abound regarding the beginning of the modern-day manifestation of the tradition. Some say that because hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this part of Mexico, drug induced revelations caused the imaginations of some to wander, ultimately becoming expressed in their carvings. The better explanation is that knowledge of colorful, large, papier maché alebrijes or dragon-like forms which originated in the State of Mexico, eventually filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the fathers of contemporary painted wooden carvings. “You know, it’s not accurate to refer to what we create as alebrijes, because to the older generation of Mexicans, and to true folk art collectors, alebrijes were developed near D.F. (Distrito Federal, or Mexico City, the nation’s capital), and what we do is completely different.”
Jacobo demonstrates how his ancestors created natural paints, historically utilized for dying clothing, painting buildings, and ceremonially as face and body decoration used for rites of passage, fiestas, prayer and other important occasions. Today their primary use, at least in Jacobo’s family, is for painting the carvings. He explains with the assistance of his machete and a tree trunk how he cuts away the reddish inside part of the bark of the male copal, allows it to dry, then toasts and grinds it: “This is a primary base that we use, which allows us to create a range of colors, tones and shades. Just watch.”
Using his hands as palettes, Jacobo begins by placing a small amount of the powdered bark in one hand, squeezes juice from a lime, creating a brown, which he then places on an unpainted wooden owl. “Yes the owl is also one of our sacred creatures, the great healer, quiet and humble.” He reveals: “Now over time, and in the sun, this color will change or fade and be absorbed into the wood. So what our ancestors learned to do was take the dried sap from the copal tree and heat it up with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the paint, changing the color a little; see, it becomes a deep orange … but most importantly it acts as a mordent making the color permanent, and a little shiny.” He adds powdered limestone, and the color changes to black. With the addition of baking soda and more lime juice it becomes a deep yellow, and with more chemical it miraculously becomes magenta. A new base is then started, with crushed pomegranate seeds. Magically the pulverized pink is transformed into green with the addition of limestone powder. Mixed with the magenta, it becomes navy blue. With the addition of zinc it becomes grey, and with more zinc, white. Blue from the añil tree, indigo, is altered with the addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime juice or the powdered lime mineral. Corn mold, a black gooey culinary delicacy known as huitlacoche, when fermented and then powdered, yields ochre. The red of the dried and then crushed minute insect, the cochineal, which feeds off its host nopal cactus, becomes orange with the addition of the juice of any of a number of acidic fruits.
The demonstration terminates with Jacobo asking, “what´s your favorite animal,” following which he finger paints a rabbit from the rainbow of colors on his palms, as only Alice could have imagined.
******************
With approximately 150 families now producing painted wooden figures in these and a couple of other smaller villages, the questions left unanswered remain: What facilitated and drove more carvers to adopt the papier maché style of using brilliant color combinations, and how can everyone in these villages make a living from this solitary art-form?
As with other crafts in the central valleys of Oaxaca, their production wasn’t always the primary means of sustenance for the populace. Traditionally, handicrafts were a hobby or part-time trade, beginning with very few items being sold to the odd passerby, adventurer or traveler. In the case of rugs from nearby Teotitlán del Valle, there were trade routes that producers followed in order to effect more sales in other regions of the state, and in some cases beyond. But the primary means of family survival was working the land and small-scale ranching. And in the case of the carving villages, there never was a broader market, although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were an extremely well-received craft throughout the 1960’s and into the 80’s.
Dramatic change in production and marketing of wooden carvings had its genesis in the 1940’s. The pan-American highway cut through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, reaching Oaxaca, opening up the region to the north, in particular Mexico City and the border states. Until then Oaxaca was relatively isolated notwithstanding a rail connection. By the 1950’s and early 60’s Americans and Canadians were prospering from the post-war boom, credit cards had been mailed to virtually everyone, and word spread of a new kind of vacation, in a third world country, Mexico. Jet air travel facilitated the transformation. The women’s movement meant more two income families, resulting in more disposable income for traveling. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel agents partnered to begin offering tour packages, which further facilitated tourism to the region.
The hippie movement of the 1960’s and early 70’s brought Oaxaca to the forefront of the alternative lifestyle, with throngs of youth and their pop idols traveling to Huautla de Jiménez, then a tiny Oaxacan village, to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms with the now infamous healer María Sabina. North American youth saw and purchased the first generation of contemporary wood carvings.
By the 1980’s, as a consequence of multiple factors, Oaxacan alebrijes had become well-established as folk art, with the market continuing to grow. The economic implication was that farmers and ranchers were able to spend more time carving and painting, and less time in the countryside and in marketplaces vending their produce and animals. With a new toll-road opening from Mexico City to Oaxaca in 1995, access to the southern state became even quicker and easier, and safe. In good conscience, travel writers were no longer able to warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-road banditos, or cars overheating on secondary roads without service stations.
The future market for the artistry? While the odd visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort such as Puerto Escondido, or the more popular Huatulco, does visit the state capital and the workshops of carvers like Jacobo, most do not. Within the next four years a new highway to the coast will open, cutting road travel time by at least a third. Even more sun worshipers will visit Oaxaca, and marvel at the art of Jacobo and María Ángeles.
Since opening their family workshop in 1996, without a doubt Jacobo and María have singularly raised the quality bar for other villagers who aspire to mirror their success. With Oaxacan wood carvings of superior quality now well established on the world stage, and access no longer an impediment, the challenge for others in San Martín Tilcajete will be to achieve the success of the Ángeles family through production of like quality, until now eluding most.
A challenge for all carvers in the region is to ensure a continuous supply of copal to meet demand. A reforestation project spear-headed about 15 years ago by the late master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues through his Foundation. The Ángeles family with friends and other villagers spend the last Sunday of each July, in the midst of the rainy season, planting, a part of their sustainable living effort: ensuring an ongoing supply of raw product, cutting only branches for making figures so that the tree continues to grow, reducing waste by utilizing the slivers and sawdust in repair work and any remaining twigs and branches as firewood for cooking, and using the sap and bark in paint production. “And you know,” Jacobo reminds, “for generations we’ve been using the hardened sap as incense, mainly at religious cememonies. There are even knifemakers down the road in Ocotlán, who engrave their hand-forged blades using a special ink made with the sap. Have you visited the cuchillería of Ángel Aguilar?”
For high end collectors, we can only encourage the success of all efforts aimed at maintaining the growth and development of the Oaxacan woodcarving tradition, since it satisfies and advances our penchant for and obsession with quality hand-fashioned craftsmanship. For the artisans in the region, aside from the obvious economic importance, it’s part of maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness of the culture to the broader world.
The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is located at Calle Olvido #9, San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán, Oaxaca ( t: 951-524-9047 ; w: http://www.tilcajete.org ; e: angeles@tilcajete.org ).
bridal shower favors
Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Try searching the Americas to find creators of folk art with more form, symbolism and importance to the development and sustenance of their culture, than those of indigenous ancestry in Oaxaca (wa–HAW–ka), one of the southernmost Mexican states.
Many so-called experts in folk art have mistakenly written that the origins of Oaxaca’s wood carving tradition date back fifty or sixty years, to a small number of carvers residing in one of the central valleys of Oaxaca, a few miles from the state capital of the same name. The error has consistently been equating the recent commercialization of the art-form with its origins, and ignoring its pre-Hispanic roots and subsequent development.
Jacobo Ángeles lives with his wife María and two children in San Martín Tilcajete, one of three main native Zapotec villages, where most residents earn a living from carving and painting colorful figures, often generically referred to as alebrijes. The others are Arrazola and La Unión Tejalapan.
At age 12 Jacobo began learning to carve from his father. Later on he was mentored by village elders. “Over the past few decades our craft has without a doubt changed dramatically,” Jacobo explains, “with the use of more synthetic paints, a tremendous increase in the range of figures being carved, and with domestic and international demand for our carvings growing exponentially and affecting how and what we produce. But remember, my ancestors were carving animals right here in this region before the Spanish arrived in the 1500’s. And we were using only natural paint colors which we derived from fruits and vegetables, plants and tree bark, clay, and even insects. In my family we still use what we find around us to make paint for our figures, and our wood of choice continues to be the branches of the copal tree.”
San Martín Tilcajete is located about a 40 minute drive from the city of Oaxaca, along a highway leading to the state’s Pacific resort towns, including one of the oldest ports, Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was a hub for the export of coffee and other cash crops during colonial times, but is now a popular beach destination for Mexican and international vacationers alike. Many travelers combine their sun and sand vacation with a visit to Oaxaca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, searching out unique pieces of folk art including dance masks, pottery and clay figures, rugs and tapestries, and antiques from the colonial period forward. And of course there are the pre-Hispanic ruins, galleries, impressive Dominican churches, museums, and renowned Oaxacan cuisine.
“My ancestors used a 20-day calendar,” Jacobo continues, “and each day was represented by a different creature. So every Zapotec person had an animal with whom he had a connection, and each animal had certain characteristics which carried over to the individual. For example, the jaguar represents power and ultimate strength, the frog is characterized by honesty and openness, the coyote watchful observation, the turtle always a troublemaker prone to breaking the rules, the eagle technical and strategic power, and so on. My people used to carve figures of just these 20 animals. They started out as small whittlings for good luck that people would keep in a revered niche in the home, or wear around the neck as amulets. They also carved larger figures for their children to use as toys.”
After much probing, an almost forgotten story emerges of the use of decoys of wood and other materials. Jacobo reveals: “My people used a variety of methods to attract different kinds of game, but for hunting birds of prey, rabbits, and deer, yes they at times used decoys. A painted wooden snake would be placed on the ground in an area where ants had trampled the grasses so the snake decoy would easily be seen by eagles. To hunt rabbit, my ancestors would attach a rabbit tail to one end of a straw hat, and at the other end another tail with a face painted on it. For deer, a crude wooden deer torso with real antlers would be placed in the tall brush. So carving was historically important to our people for not only totemic and related reasons, but it was directly related to our subsistence. All the written records from the period of the conquest, and not just local legend, confirm the importance of woodcarving.”
“But look at what we now carve. While in my family we still use natural paints, and still carve our totems, we’ve transformed a simple yet important and symbolic tradition into something very different. In our villages we now carve many more than those 20 animals because of collector demand. More importantly, we’re able to make our heritage better understood and appreciated by the world. In our own workshop, our painting depicts designs and representations of our culture … friezes from the ancient ruin at Mitla, symbols representing waves, mountains and fertility, the totems, and other metaphors for our culture, past and present.”
Indeed the world has taken notice. Jacobo’s work is prominently displayed in The Smithsonian Institute, Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art, and elsewhere throughout the continent and further abroad, in museums, art colleges and galleries. Jacobo regularly traverses the U.S. promoting Oaxacan folk art and his Zapotec heritage, teaching in a diversity of educational venues ranging from junior schools to university departments of fine art, and as honored speaker at art exhibition openings.
********************
A visit to the Ángeles workshop, accessed by a heavily pot-holed narrow dirt road towards one end of the village, affords an opportunity to learn about this extraordinary skill-set, from Jacobo, Maria — an excellent painter in her own right — and some two dozen other members of their family who produce some of the finest quality carvings found anywhere on the continent.
The men do most of the carving, while women do most of the painting, but the tasks are definitely not exclusively based on gender lines. Carving is done with non – mechanical hand-tools such as machetes, chisels and knives. The only time a more sophisticated tool is used is when a chain saw is employed to cut off a branch and level a base for a proposed figure.
Except when a special order is received, the woodworkers in the family are given artistic license to carve whatever figure they wish. A piece of tree trunk will “speak” to one of these specialists, and be the inspiration for creating a particular animal: the shape, thickness, and bends and twists in the piece come alive. After the bark is removed, a detailed outline is drawn, defining the image with greater clarity and detail. The sculpting in earnest then begins.
“From the female copal tree we are able to make figures out of one piece of wood, often very large and intricate. This wood is soft and easy to work with. The male tree is harder, and branches tend to be smaller and somewhat delicate, so we use it to make animals which we assemble in the process.”
The carving alone takes up to a month, at times longer. The figure is then left to dry for up to 10 months, depending on its overall size and thickness. Because of the properties of copal, and Oaxaca’s semi-tropical climate, the wood is susceptible to termite infestation. Accordingly, during the drying process the piece is soaked in a gasoline / insecticide mixture for several hours. As an added assurance, it’s then placed in an oven, just in case eggs have evaded extermination. “All of our pieces are guaranteed to never have a termite problem,” Jacobo assures.
Since the figures are fashioned while the wood is green and more easily workable, the wood separates while drying. “There are a couple of members of my family whose main job is to fill the cracks before the painting begins.” For this remedial work they use wood shims as well as a sawdust-glue mixture. But even these slivers of wood and the sawdust have been cured. “We’re proud of our work, and never want to have any problems with any of our buyers, whether someone is spending $20 or $2,000.”
In almost all cases in the Ángeles workshop, one person carves and another paints. Once a figure has left the hands of the carver, all proprietary rights are released, and another member of the family is entrusted with the painting. Nephew Magdaleno explains: “Occasionally one of my cousins will come up to me and say ‘what do you think about these colors or this kind of design concept for this coyote,’ and I’ll give my feedback, but it doesn’t happen very often, and I’m invariably pleased with the result. For me it’s the form that’s most important, and for whoever’s painting, it’s the imagery it captures.”
One cannot help but gasp at the sculpting genius which goes into each piece: A starving dog scratching fleas, a bear with its paw in a honey pot, a snake constricting a wincing jaguar, a winged horse on its hinds, a woman with long braided locks and the body of an armadillo, or a deer, life-size by Mexican standards. There’s something particularly arresting about each creation: the ever-so-flowing and realistic movement, a fanciful stance, or a familiar pose striking a chord with our popular characterization. However the painting is anything but familiar. No color goes untested and the intricacy of and variation in design is remarkable.
Theories abound regarding the beginning of the modern-day manifestation of the tradition. Some say that because hallucinogenic mushrooms are native to this part of Mexico, drug induced revelations caused the imaginations of some to wander, ultimately becoming expressed in their carvings. The better explanation is that knowledge of colorful, large, papier maché alebrijes or dragon-like forms which originated in the State of Mexico, eventually filtered down to Oaxaca, and were the inspiration for the fathers of contemporary painted wooden carvings. “You know, it’s not accurate to refer to what we create as alebrijes, because to the older generation of Mexicans, and to true folk art collectors, alebrijes were developed near D.F. (Distrito Federal, or Mexico City, the nation’s capital), and what we do is completely different.”
Jacobo demonstrates how his ancestors created natural paints, historically utilized for dying clothing, painting buildings, and ceremonially as face and body decoration used for rites of passage, fiestas, prayer and other important occasions. Today their primary use, at least in Jacobo’s family, is for painting the carvings. He explains with the assistance of his machete and a tree trunk how he cuts away the reddish inside part of the bark of the male copal, allows it to dry, then toasts and grinds it: “This is a primary base that we use, which allows us to create a range of colors, tones and shades. Just watch.”
Using his hands as palettes, Jacobo begins by placing a small amount of the powdered bark in one hand, squeezes juice from a lime, creating a brown, which he then places on an unpainted wooden owl. “Yes the owl is also one of our sacred creatures, the great healer, quiet and humble.” He reveals: “Now over time, and in the sun, this color will change or fade and be absorbed into the wood. So what our ancestors learned to do was take the dried sap from the copal tree and heat it up with honey. The resulting liquid is then mixed with the paint, changing the color a little; see, it becomes a deep orange … but most importantly it acts as a mordent making the color permanent, and a little shiny.” He adds powdered limestone, and the color changes to black. With the addition of baking soda and more lime juice it becomes a deep yellow, and with more chemical it miraculously becomes magenta. A new base is then started, with crushed pomegranate seeds. Magically the pulverized pink is transformed into green with the addition of limestone powder. Mixed with the magenta, it becomes navy blue. With the addition of zinc it becomes grey, and with more zinc, white. Blue from the añil tree, indigo, is altered with the addition of bicarbonate, zinc, lime juice or the powdered lime mineral. Corn mold, a black gooey culinary delicacy known as huitlacoche, when fermented and then powdered, yields ochre. The red of the dried and then crushed minute insect, the cochineal, which feeds off its host nopal cactus, becomes orange with the addition of the juice of any of a number of acidic fruits.
The demonstration terminates with Jacobo asking, “what´s your favorite animal,” following which he finger paints a rabbit from the rainbow of colors on his palms, as only Alice could have imagined.
******************
With approximately 150 families now producing painted wooden figures in these and a couple of other smaller villages, the questions left unanswered remain: What facilitated and drove more carvers to adopt the papier maché style of using brilliant color combinations, and how can everyone in these villages make a living from this solitary art-form?
As with other crafts in the central valleys of Oaxaca, their production wasn’t always the primary means of sustenance for the populace. Traditionally, handicrafts were a hobby or part-time trade, beginning with very few items being sold to the odd passerby, adventurer or traveler. In the case of rugs from nearby Teotitlán del Valle, there were trade routes that producers followed in order to effect more sales in other regions of the state, and in some cases beyond. But the primary means of family survival was working the land and small-scale ranching. And in the case of the carving villages, there never was a broader market, although in San Martín Tilcajete embroidered shirts, blouses and dresses were an extremely well-received craft throughout the 1960’s and into the 80’s.
Dramatic change in production and marketing of wooden carvings had its genesis in the 1940’s. The pan-American highway cut through the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, reaching Oaxaca, opening up the region to the north, in particular Mexico City and the border states. Until then Oaxaca was relatively isolated notwithstanding a rail connection. By the 1950’s and early 60’s Americans and Canadians were prospering from the post-war boom, credit cards had been mailed to virtually everyone, and word spread of a new kind of vacation, in a third world country, Mexico. Jet air travel facilitated the transformation. The women’s movement meant more two income families, resulting in more disposable income for traveling. Mexicana Airlines and Oaxacan travel agents partnered to begin offering tour packages, which further facilitated tourism to the region.
The hippie movement of the 1960’s and early 70’s brought Oaxaca to the forefront of the alternative lifestyle, with throngs of youth and their pop idols traveling to Huautla de Jiménez, then a tiny Oaxacan village, to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms with the now infamous healer María Sabina. North American youth saw and purchased the first generation of contemporary wood carvings.
By the 1980’s, as a consequence of multiple factors, Oaxacan alebrijes had become well-established as folk art, with the market continuing to grow. The economic implication was that farmers and ranchers were able to spend more time carving and painting, and less time in the countryside and in marketplaces vending their produce and animals. With a new toll-road opening from Mexico City to Oaxaca in 1995, access to the southern state became even quicker and easier, and safe. In good conscience, travel writers were no longer able to warn tourists about driving the switchbacks, back-road banditos, or cars overheating on secondary roads without service stations.
The future market for the artistry? While the odd visitor to a Oaxacan coastal resort such as Puerto Escondido, or the more popular Huatulco, does visit the state capital and the workshops of carvers like Jacobo, most do not. Within the next four years a new highway to the coast will open, cutting road travel time by at least a third. Even more sun worshipers will visit Oaxaca, and marvel at the art of Jacobo and María Ángeles.
Since opening their family workshop in 1996, without a doubt Jacobo and María have singularly raised the quality bar for other villagers who aspire to mirror their success. With Oaxacan wood carvings of superior quality now well established on the world stage, and access no longer an impediment, the challenge for others in San Martín Tilcajete will be to achieve the success of the Ángeles family through production of like quality, until now eluding most.
A challenge for all carvers in the region is to ensure a continuous supply of copal to meet demand. A reforestation project spear-headed about 15 years ago by the late master of contemporary Mexican art, Rodolfo Morales, continues through his Foundation. The Ángeles family with friends and other villagers spend the last Sunday of each July, in the midst of the rainy season, planting, a part of their sustainable living effort: ensuring an ongoing supply of raw product, cutting only branches for making figures so that the tree continues to grow, reducing waste by utilizing the slivers and sawdust in repair work and any remaining twigs and branches as firewood for cooking, and using the sap and bark in paint production. “And you know,” Jacobo reminds, “for generations we’ve been using the hardened sap as incense, mainly at religious cememonies. There are even knifemakers down the road in Ocotlán, who engrave their hand-forged blades using a special ink made with the sap. Have you visited the cuchillería of Ángel Aguilar?”
For high end collectors, we can only encourage the success of all efforts aimed at maintaining the growth and development of the Oaxacan woodcarving tradition, since it satisfies and advances our penchant for and obsession with quality hand-fashioned craftsmanship. For the artisans in the region, aside from the obvious economic importance, it’s part of maintaining their Zapotec heritage and illustrating the richness of the culture to the broader world.
The workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles is located at Calle Olvido #9, San Martín Tilcajete, Ocotlán, Oaxaca ( t: 951-524-9047 ; w: http://www.tilcajete.org ; e: angeles@tilcajete.org ).
bridal shower favors
what is pop culture?
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Other - Society & Culture
Nov 11,2011
is it a lifestyle or tradition??
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